Becoming the Beast
by The Essential Word
Summary: All her life Kaiyel has worked to clear the scum from the docks district...but her brutal methods may one day make her into just what she despises.
1. The Mark of Justice

Becoming the Beast

T: some mature themes, though nothing truly major. Rated mostly for language. No sex. Rating is subject to change.

This story is a bit dark, but I figured it had to be dark in order to properly handle the personality involved. Remember to review, constructive criticism absolutely welcomed and wanted.

XXX

This evening a little girl disappeared. Her mother lived in a small house in the docks. The little girl was the result of one night between the mother and a sailor passing through. And then he took to the blue seas again and never said goodbye.

And now the little girl is gone.

I _will _find her. I'll tear the docks apart, plank by plank, tear it apart and search through the ashes until I've found the little thing and brought her home. And those who took her I will tear apart until there is nothing left and they will _know_ what true pain is, and they will _know _what its like to hurt and to beg for mercy.

I'm sure they've seen it so many times before: a victim, frozen, fearful, small, crying to god, crying to everything, for help, for compassion, and they kill them with their cruel hand in the coldest of blood…the gentle, ugly trickle staining cobblestone red...their sin marked forever in the streets.

When I find them I will stain the ground a bright, bright red, so that everyone can see where justice had been served. Sweet, beautiful justice.

In streets covered of filth, bad people in the dust, I'll walk forever until nothing is left but the beautiful and good.

My sister once said, "Those are dangerous words, Kaiyel. What if you become the villain yourself? What if you become bad? You can fight monsters; tear each and every one apart, until the only monster left is you."

"Then I'll kill myself with my own sword and the world will be cleansed."

"I beg you to stop this. Please, please repent. Selune can always accept more followers…no matter what."

"Have you even bothered setting foot in the docks?"

"Why does it matter?"

"Because then you'd understand and see. It's easy to live in your gilded tower, seeing nothing of evil. But try wading amongst scum and see how it changes you, Issildra."

She had no answer.

Issildra is supposedly a beauty, with her black hair and big, blue eyes; a regular doll. I don't care about physical beauty; it does nothing for anyone. Oh, but everyone says she is beautiful without knowing—truly knowing—that beauty is a weak, weak thing; like a flower, shining at its peak in summer, dying in the harshness of winter.

But she loves Selune purely with fervor I haven't seen her give to anyone else. It's probably why she took a vow of chastity…but it is fitting for her. She never has been interested in the carnal, seems to never be tempted by the base, the crude, always on a high, high pedestal…

My mother is beautiful too. They're all so beautiful. But what do they say of me? "A…rough looking woman." Sometimes they call me a monster, a hulking beast not fit for womanhood.

"What a shame…she's wasting her child-bearing years."

I don't need children, or love, or romance. I wouldn't bring a brat into this idiot world for anything. My womb will stay cold and barren for as long as I live, devoid of life, unused, until it shrivels up. Life will never pass through me…I shall be empty of it, empty of my own womanhood, as I put all my energy into my sword arm. Until the very end. It's just the way of things for people like me.

I don't need my womanhood anyway.

"But children can be a gentling experience," my mother had said once. She looked at me through her thin eyelashes, her eyes a deep, endless brown. They always said my mother had the sadness of many weary years in her eyes; it was what was so enchanting about her, apparently.

"I'm sure," I said.

"It could change you for the better."

"Yes, so I become docile, with no thought in my mind but a damn brat, who I'll bring up in this ugly, wretched world. Take your damned 'change' and send it to hell."

"All right. You win. But something needs to change. I fear for you."

How many children would I have to bear, anyway, to make up for all the bodies I've left behind me? I suppose fifty or so. That's far too many for any woman to handle, even me. I'd rather allow other women to have children to make up for the many lives I've taken.

I have contacts. You don't work in a place like the docks for long without them. There are so many hidden crevices, so many rocks for scum to hide under that sometimes you need someone there who can prod you to just the right place.

One contact told me where the little girl might be, so I followed his instructions to a broken house, made of timbers rotting, the roof falling in, the windows curtained. I tried turning the knob, but it would not turn. So I kicked the door in.

Inside I saw darkness and heard nothing.

"Why did you have to come back?" came a voice. It was a little voice, fit for a little girl, fearful, cowering, a voice made shrill by fright. "Leave me alone, leave me alone, leave me alone, leave me—" and the words chocked on broken sobs. It seemed as if the sadness was as deep as the dark, as pitiful, as sad.

"Who?" I said.

My voice must have been new to her, for I heard scrambling. "Help me, help me."

"I'm right here."

"I can't find you! Oh…" I heard her little body plop to the ground and the sobs wrack her body.

Following the sobs, I gently crouched and held my hand to the ground, trying to feel for her. I came across her soon enough. "Stand up."

She stood, shaking as if a little earthquake were inside her.

"Are you all right?" I said.

"H-he's going to send me to s-slavers."

"No, he's not."

"Are you with him?"  
"I'm a guardsman."

"You're here to help?"

"Of course."

She threw herself at me and set her tears on my shoulder. "I want a hug…"

I-I-the little thing seemed so sad and small, like a wounded bird. I put an arm around her, but didn't let her cry long. There was no telling when he'd be back.

"Now do as I say. Go into that corner over there and stay quiet as a mouse. No matter what happens, don't speak."

She scampered away.

And I stood in the middle of the room, covered by darkness, watching the door and waiting, waiting, for the first sign of movement. Light streamed through the open doorway ahead of me, white and gold.

And there he was, standing, entering into the place, coming closer to the darkness.

"Hello, little girl," he said. "I'm taking you to some people who would like to see—"

The moment he came into the darkness, I was upon him, my hand on his neck, my other gripping his hair, pulling, pulling as if I was ripping his scalp off.

There was a gasp; I know the sound of fear, of shock. And so I knew why he sputtered unintelligibly and didn't struggle, why his first words were a cry to some god he didn't deserve to even know.

I cut him through. I spared the world another piece of filth. I wiped out the scum clean. I hope the gods don't forgive him. I want to see the bastard in hell.

"You can come out," I said. I heard soft footsteps across the floor. A couple times I heard a fall. But she came over and clung to me.

"Why'd he scream? Why?"

"I'm taking you home to your mother."

"The scream? Why? Where'd he go? What?"

"People scream. Now go home."

Her hand must have felt the blood, for she cried "It's blood!"

"Go home."

"I'm so scared," she said. As she retreated into the light I could see her widened eyes, set in her child's face, but filled with a fear too strong for any child to feel. "You're an orc. A monster. Don't hurt me." She broke down and all came pouring forth as fresh tears.

"Just go. Your mother's worried."

She left as fast as she probably could, sparing me no glance.

I didn't care. Thank you's are useless in the long run, anyway. I don't want them and people can stuff them. I want JUSTICE. For there is one thing that matters: the scum had been cleaned out.

I left the house, leaving my mark behind, red upon the house's floor, of justice that had been served.

XXX  
There will be more of this story.


	2. The Deep Hypocrisy

"Heal me," I said, but Issildra held up a finger for me to wait and continued talking to an old woman, hunched in her chair, her old eyes lined, face wrinkled. It was becoming night and the whole shrine was in frenzy—a frenzy almost too large for the small building to handle—for a full moon was in the sky. More worshippers poured in than ever, because the moonmaiden's power was at its fullest.

I waited by the door, my arms crossed, staring through a throng of people at Issildra, who had rested a hand on the woman's shoulder and said something so soft I couldn't hear. But then she spoke louder. "Selune will be with you in everything. My sisters and I will pray for your tonight."

Issildra has a strange way with people, you could say. In her eyes, so blue, she gets this gentle, gentle look and people feel comforted by her, as if they were surrounded by love. Most people sing her praises, saying she's "something too pure for the world. A beautiful, beautiful thing." They say she is as close to Selune as any mortal can be.

Something funny happened a while back. Some poor schmuck, uneducated and unaccustomed to churches, came in begging for coins. Issildra spoke to him and gave him a meal. By the end he was kissing her feet and mistaking her for Selune herself. If he knew better, if he weren't so entrenched in ignorance, he would know that she's not sinless, not perfect. She's simply better at hiding her sin than most. I know things she's done that would make her pedestal crumble.

She's had a child. An illegitimate brat. And no one was allowed to know because mother's dear reputation would blacken and the church would lose its best member. Vow of chastity, indeed.

What of the child? Abandoned in an orphanage.

"So, what are you going to do with it?" I had asked her a while back, when all of this had begun to happen.

She had been in her room, sitting on her bed, looking out the window, seemingly seeing a great distance into Suzail. Usually she and I lived in Marsember—she at the Shrine and I in the guard barracks— far away from our mother and her mansion, but these strange circumstances drew us back. I was only visiting, of course. Issildra was stuck there for at least nine months.

When I asked the question, she had looked stricken, sick, and held her swollen stomach as if she were afraid she would bust right there. "Selune would not want me to end its life."

"What are you going to do then? Bringing a child like that into the world? They'll call you a whore. You are a whore. All you need is to slather some make-up on and cut your shirt real low. Who the hell did you sleep with, anyway? What did he give you? Where's the bastard now?"

"Don't lecture me. I know. I've thought of all that. I've prayed. I've lied prostrate before my goddess. I don't know what else to do…I haven't left the house in months. I just can't face them looking at me, seeing me. They'd think horrible things about me. Imagine the talk! Oh Selune, Selune, what can I do?"

Her face had twisted so that she looked sick, and those eyes of hers were clouded. That was the one thing I hated about her: she cared too deeply for what people thought of her. She cared more deeply about people's opinions than the people themselves; her kindness came from wanting to keep up appearance, of wanting to seem compassionate. Because she was afraid of sin; but most of all she was afraid of herself, afraid of being seen for what she was: a person, flawed, yes, but real, alive and beautiful. Real and alive in a way this "image" she projects never will be.

"You're so wise. Wise enough to get pregnant by a man who just ran off in the wind. Gone!" I snapped my fingers. "Just like that."

"Be quiet, Kaiyel."

"Are you getting angry? Finally, we get to see a crack in that façade."

"You're a cruel woman who couldn't possibly understand."

"Okay, I'll try to understand. Why did you sleep with him?"

She avoided my gaze and said nothing.

"Go ahead, tell me. Why?"

And again silence.

"Can't you speak? Well, what is it?"

"I was lonely!" The scream came sudden and loud, coming from a deep reserve, hidden for so long. She covered her mouth and looked shocked. Her next words were soft, fading whispers. "Just—just leave me be, Kaiyel. Leave me be." She bowed her head and cried tears that had been a long time in the coming. To me her remorse was worth more than a thousand good deeds, for at least one was real and true.

I left Suzail and came back to Marsember. I barely said goodbye to mother.

Later, when the child was born, it was tossed to rot in an orphanage because Issildra just couldn't bear to take care of it, couldn't bear to be seen with the child or, worse, what people might say about her. Because the baby was born of sin, of a passion that should not have been, a horrible carnality. It was an embodiment of all the darkness in her heart, darkness she tried to hide.

The whole thing was covered up and never mentioned again. Oh, but I remember. I remember it all.

Yet Issildra is still the main draw to the shrine. Before her, the shrine had done poorly mostly because in Cormyr people could give a damn less about Selune. No, they love the shine off gold, the thrill of money, the glory of Waukeen to the waxing, waning moonmaiden.

Some people would say it all in the past. I say not. Because the past matters. It matters dearly. It reveals fakers for her they are.

But speaking of hypocrites, I watched as Issildra came over to me, smiling serenely. "My dearest sister," she said. "Are you all right?"

I showed her my hand and removed the cloth I had on it to clot the blood. She examined it for a moment, lips pursed, before saying "It's a bad scrape, but I can heal it. No worries."

She touched my hand and there was pain as the wound grew back together, followed by a chill feeling, a numbness, before she withdrew her hand.

"How did you get this particular injury, anyway?" she said.

"Doing the usual business."

"Oh, yes, that." She frowned. "There should be more to life than just…disposing…of people left and right. There is such a thing as redemption and the church always accepts those who come to us seeking it. Perhaps you should send them our way from now on."

"Of course I will. The next rapist I run into, the next child-beating bastard, I'll send them your way and you can redeem them. That would be wonderful, wouldn't it, Issildra? Reforming criminals…how _sweet_. Come to Selune's open arms, all you rapists, murderers, wife-beating, abusive, damned monsters! She accepts all! Before you tell me anything, take a step out of this stupid temple. See what evil is like before you reform it. Because you know nothing. You've seen nothing."

"Kaiyel, we both know your actions are less-than-good."

"I'm only doing what's right."

"Your idea of right is cruelty!" I was thrilled to see her scowl, to see her lose control of her temper.

I didn't say another word, but left the shrine with a smile, knowing the hypocrite had lost control, even if just once.

But before I left, I heard her say, "I fear for you."

Nobody should fear for me. Ever.


End file.
